There are several types of safety intravenous catheter designs. Most of the designs are similar to syringes or blood sampling devices that are available today. One such design is shown in a patent issued to JAGGER et al on Jun. 3, 1986 U.S. Pat. No. 4,592,744. This is a safety blood sampling device however it requires two (2) hands to operate or to cover the needle cannula.
Blood samples are also taken with syringes and there are also many safety syringes available. Some of these designs have a sleeve or sheath that will cover the needle after it has been used. Some typical designs with sleeves or sheaths are Z.M. ROEHR et all U.S. Pat. No. 3,008,570, Z.M. ROEHR U.S. Pat. No. 3,107,785, BARTNER, et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,895,633, G.K. BURKE U.S. Pat. No. 3,306,291, GYURE et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,300,678, WINSTEAD HALL U.S. Pat. No. 4,356,822, SAMPSON U.S. Pat. No. 4,425,120, LARSON U.S. Pat. No. 4,639,249, HARBAUGH U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,751, STRAUSS U.S. Pat. No. 4,664,654, BRAGINETZ U.S. Pat. No. 466,435, SPENCER U.S. Pat. No. 4,702,738, MILORAD U.S. Pat. No. 4,702,739, SPENCER U.S. Pat. No. 4,801,295, PONCY U.S. Pat. No. 4,816,022, and HUGHES U.S. Pat. No. 4,840,619.
Other designs have a retractable needle such as WELTMAN U.S. Pat. No. 3,306,290, and DENT U.S. Pat. No. 4,392,859. These designs do not have a means whereby the needle is extended from the syringe and held in place in a positive and rigid position in order to first inject the needle prior to injecting the medication. Still other designs have methods of bending to render the needle harmless after the medication has been injected. Most of these designs have one major purpose and that is to prevent the spread of infectious diseases such as aids, hepatitis, or other diseases from an accidental injection with a contaminated needle into others after the needle of the syringe was inserted into a patient with the above mentioned disease. These various designs all work well to a degree, but they all fall short of there intended purpose during the act of covering the needle, or removing the needle, which requires two hands.
All of these designs require at least two hands to operate. The use of two hands to cover the contaminated needle is most unsatisfactory in that during the act of placing a second hand on the intervenes catheter device or syringe, the person holding the intravenous catheter device or syringe in one hand may be bumped and accidentally inject the needle into there other hand before it can grasp the syringe. Other accidental jabbing or injections can happen in an ambulance where just as a person tries to grasp the contaminated intravenous catheter device or syringe, the ambulance can hit a bump in the road causing the person holding the intravenous catheter device or syringe to accidentally stick another person or themselves with the contaminated needle. The need has developed for an intravenous catheter device or syringe that will cover the contaminated needle with the use of only one hand.